You must not have watched much news back then. It was wall to wall St Helen's and Carter for a month, I very distinctly remember that. Didn't help Carter, this won't help oblah blah, the old media does not own information like they used to.
We have a very different recollection of 1980.
When the volcano blew up, CNN had not yet been born, and very few people even had cable TV.
TV news was 30 minutes at 6:30 eastern and 30 minutes local news at 11:00 eastern, and that was it.
Jimmeh was holed up in the White House and would speak of nothing but the Iranian hostage crisis.
What we considered to be wall-to-wall coverage in 1980 was thirty minutes every night at 11:30, "America Held Hostage", about Iran, on ABC-TV.
The Mount St. Helens eruption was only two or three weeks after the botched hostage rescue attempt, which was a far, far bigger story.
It was in a remote area, with little damage or loss of life, so the eruption was treated more as a novelty that quickly faded to page 3 of the newspaper.
I've seen more Mount St. Helen's news and tape on National Geographic channel this year than I ever did in 1980.
At least that's how I remember it.
